


Lebensraum

by Revantio



Category: Naruto, Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Also Kaneki: The Village's Number One Gossip Broker, Dimension Travel, Gen, Kaneki: Very Done (Not) Civilian In Ninja World(tm), i don't know what am i writing most of the time honestly, i was looking for like a Kaneki opens a cafe in Konoha but i cant find it, so here you go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 05:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14710028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revantio/pseuds/Revantio
Summary: Kaneki wished for Death God to take him way.The God of Shinobi is the one who found him instead.





	Lebensraum

He woke up when he expected himself to die; stench of blood prickled his nose and cold water rained on his being. Kaneki closed his eyes then, ignoring sounds of battle somewhere out there, and light steps of someone approaching him.

He wanted to be left alone to die. He wished to not wake again in this world, and if he had to wake up, then he wanted to see his (dead) family; Touka, Hinami, Hide, and everyone he cared. Death always took those around him but never himself, it was unfair. This it the time for death to take him away, too.

(... he will soon know, with great disappointment, that the one who took him wasn’t death)  


* * *

 

When Hiruzen found the boy, he was drenched in his own blood, red pooling around his body with rain water and dirt. He thought the white-haired boy was dead, and he was about to leave, for his troops are fighting nearby and he had a duty as a Leader to open the way to victory.

But the boy with strange clothing was alive, and he had no hitai-ate nor belongings except what he wore. Not even shoes to cover his feet.

Yes, he might be dangerous. Yes, the council might throw a fit, that their Hokage took in suspicious, possibly village-threatening stray, but Hiruzen picked the boy up nonetheless, and bring him back to Konoha.

He trusted this unconscious boy, somehow, and his instinct had never led him astray.  


* * *

 

As it turns out, the boy was an enigma.

He woke up a mere ten hours after he was treated in hospital. His ANBU guards watched the boy rip his bandages, and behind them was clean, unblemished skin.

(“I know you are there.” He hoarsely said, to no one yet everyone in the room, “Could you please kill me?”

Kaneki had asked the presences hiding in the room, unblinking, as he was exhausted and he wanted everything to end. Death is still an asshole, he thinks, or perhaps it’s Fate, who let these people found him and treated him.

He doesn’t care what kind of trick they used to stay hidden but he knows there are at least three in this room by the distinct smell of human around him.

Kaneki waited for thirty seconds, distantly realized that they won’t answer. He curled his hands around his neck, and _squeezed_.)

Hiruzen saw how the doctors worked on him, closing  a fist-sized hole on his stomach and lacerations on his body, told him that it was a miracle the boy still alive. Yet when the doctors come back after ANBU stopped the boy from breaking his own neck, he showed no injuries nor scars. It was equal part impressive and terrifying.

A gem in the making, Hiruzen thinks, or is it something far more dangerous?  


* * *

 

One week to the TI and all his Interrogators could find was the name of the boy; Kaneki Ken.

He did not react to torture techniques; watched as his fingers was cracked,  disturbingly obedient as he was force-fed poisons. Not even a whine escaped his mouth, and all shinobis who was placed on his care was left deeply uncomfortable.

The only interesting thing was when a Yamanaka was brought to the boy, and as the Interrogator droned the procedure with intimidating tone as protocol, the whole room froze as the boy lifted his head and looked at his Interrogators.

“Don’t.” It was said with a monotonous voice, croaked due to underuse, “Don’t.” He repeated, more firmly, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Of course, nobody listened to him.

The jutsu was activated and the Yamanaka _screamed_.

(Two weeks of hospital therapy was needed before Yamanaka Imano could be functional enough to not scream to the word _white_ and a speck of blood. All Hiruzen could find from the Yamanaka was a fearful whisper of,

“ _Centipede_.”)  


* * *

 

Eventually, his enigmatic prisoner was left alone in the deepest jail in TI building. Most was considerably wary to the white-haired Kaneki Ken, who could withstood pain, have an extreme regenerative ability, and reduce a Yamanaka to a traumatized mess, but there was nothing they could do with Third Shinobi War still very much waging outside the village.

Another thing they noticed was that Kaneki doesn’t need to eat. He drank the water provided to him but always left the food untouched. Again, the issue was left alone as they pegged it to his regenerative ability, and focused on other spies and prisoners they acquired in the war.

As Hiruzen took a seat in front of the bars, the white-haired boy immediately asked,

 “Why?”

The Third Hokage kept quiet, and Kaneki apparently took it to continue,

“Why did you save me, that day?”

A slight smile was curved on the aged Hokage’s face, and his voice was of a kind and wise grandfather,

“Do you know of the Will of Fire, Kaneki-kun?”

(Listening to the old man in white robe in front of him, Kaneki thinks, it’s official; this is no longer his world. But death hated him too much, it seems, to not take him away and dump him in a universe of soldiers with lagged technology, in the middle of their own foolish war.)

The white-haired boy laughed.

At first, it was low, the only indication was how his shoulders shook. Then it devolved to a full-blown laughter; which didn’t indicate joy but madness. Wisely, Hiruzen kept quiet and waited until the boy was done.

When his laugh was reduced to sobbing tears, Hiruzen continued,

“You have potential, Kaneki-kun. I’m giving you a second chance here, if you are willing to help me.”

With that, Hiruzen got up and out of the room, leaving the white-haired man with his own thoughts.  


* * *

 

“What is your answer, Kaneki-kun?”

Kaneki thinks of the two choices presented in front of him; helping this man on their own war to get a ‘new life’ (but he was so tired, what use of a new life if he had no one in this world?), or left alone in this room to starve and rampaging, eventually killed. He thinks of his own war, all the lives lost, rage, and te tragedy which follows. He thinks of Touka and Hide, their tear-stricken, bloody face in his hands as they promised Kaneki to find happiness somewhere, to keep moving despite his soul-wrenching exhaustion.

Kaneki Ken pursed his lips, and answered,

“Yes.”  


* * *

 

When Hiruzen handed the ANBU mask to the boy, his pair of grey eyes widened ever so slightly. Perhaps it was the centipede motifs crawling from left cheek up to right eye. Kaneki was silent for a moment, as he stroked the mask and trailed the centipede markings.

The next second, he turned Hiruzen’s point of view of the boy upside down by,

“In my world, i was called a Ghoul.”  


* * *

 

The war was turned to their favor when the white-haired man stepped to the battlefield. Bare-footed, a strange mask with black centipede marking covered his face. He used no hita-ate to indicate his village, but he stood beside the Hokage like an obedient pet and everyone knows where he belongs to.

Iwa was never ready to face the man.

(No one is.)  


* * *

 

“ _Man-eating Centipede_ ,” the villagers whispered in fear as their old leader raged, ramblings of traumarized survivors echoed in their hospital’s hall; of a black, giant, man-eating Centipede, controlled by the God of Shinobi.

“ _Man-eating Centipede_ ,” is what the shinobi of Konoha would say in hush-hush gossips, eyeing their Third Hokage with hidden fear and awe in their eyes, for they do not know how did their Hokage was able to held the rampaging monster who ravaged the battlefield to blood and bones. They did not know where the man came from too, as the man’s answer to the Council was a placating smile or straight up no answer at all.

“ _Man-eating Centipede,_ ” Kaneki heard, how his guest whispered in quiet tone to his friend, in the far back of the cafe.

The door-bell chimed, and yet another shinobi, with a giant dog trailed beside her entered the cafe, Kaneki smiled politely as he greeted his guest, “Would you like a cup of coffee, _shinobi_ -san?”

**Author's Note:**

> i swear this is just the beginning sadness, the rest are going to be crack cause i'm a meme


End file.
